AP has finally taken note of the Leon County, FL hack test. The extraordinary test election which was entirely flipped last Tuesday as reported here previously.

In the bargain --- in light of that devasting test, after which the Elections Director of Leon County reportedly vowed to never allow Diebold's machine to be used in another election and has requested funds to replace all of Diebold's voting machines --- and along with the Securities Fraud suit that was filed against Diebold on the same day, Diebold's PR machine has kicked into overdrive. Though their normal spokesman, David Bear, normally in charge of lying about things having to do with their Voting Machines has been notably missing in action, Diebold has been issuing press releases and sending letters in an attempt to counter and distract from the devastating news of late. And the State of Florida is similarly scrambling to find someone else to blame as well.

From AP's report today on the Leon County hack, Diebold goes on the offensive and conjures up the gall to send a letter attempting to place blame for the incident on Ion Sancho, the Elections Director in the county who was wise enough to let the test move forward in hopes of determining if the machines were as vulnerable as many of us have been charging forever...

The voting system maker, Diebold Inc., sent a letter in response that questioned the test results and said the test was "a very foolish and irresponsible act" that may violated licensing agreements.

Company spokesman David Bear did not return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment Thursday. Diebold's letter was written by its senior lawyer, Michael Lindroos, and sent to the state of Florida, Leon County and the county election supervisor, Ion Sancho.
...
In one of the tests conducted for Sancho and the non-profit election-monitoring group BlackBoxVoting.org, the researchers were able to get into the system easily, make the loser the winner and leave without a trace, said Herbert Thompson, who conducted the test.

He also said the machine that tabulates the overall count asked for a user name and password, but didn't require it.

In the other test, the researcher who had hacked into the voting machine's memory card was able to hide votes, make losers out of winners and leave no trace of the changes

In the meantime, the Florida Sec. of State's office is also trying to deflect blame for the failure of the machines that the state has certified!

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office said any faults Sancho found were between him and Diebold.

"If Ion Sancho has security concerns with his system, he needs to discuss them with Diebold," spokeswoman Jenny Nash said.

In other words, their seems to be a whole bunch of panicked ass-covering now underway in both Florida and at Diebold, with each of them trying to find someone else to blame for their failures. (The very ones that folks like The BRAD BLOG have been yelling and screaming about for at least the past year!)

It should be noted that Leon County was one of those counties who, after the 2000 Election Debacle had scrambled to bring in a replacement for the punch cards system. Going from bad to much much worse, they went with these crappy Diebold machines and after millions have been spent, they now finding themselves needing to spend millions more to replace the junk they shouldn't have bought in the first place.

It should similarly be noted that until-recently Florida Sec. of State Glenda Hood (who replaced the lovely and infamous Kathrine Harris) announced her resignation suddenly and without explanation just days before the '05 elections. A very unusual move for a Sec. of State just prior to an election.

Paul Craft, the director of Florida's Bureau of Voting Systems Certification also announced his resignation at almost exactly the same moment, just before the last November election.

Neither resignation has been adequately explained in coming so shortly before an election, just a little over a month before the Jan 1, 2006 Help America Vote Act deadline to certified all new voting machinery, and less than a year before the big 2006 elections.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush has since named Sue Cobb, a Bush Family friend, crony and major donor to take Hood's place as Secretary of State. Cobb will be in charge of assuring that Florida continues its great tradition of free, fair, open and accurate elections.

Joseph Cannon has a good round-up of the various states now fighting on behalf of, or against the Diebold "E-Revolution", including some good contact addresses for officials in St. Louis County (my home town!), North Carolina, California and elsewhere.

One piece of disinformation that I see both Joe and even the Akron Beacon-Journal have fallen for is the so-called "second fraud litigation" brought against Diebold yesterday by law firm Stull, Stull and Brody. In fact, they didn't file a second complaint, but rather issued a press release that made it appear as though they had. Presumably in order to collect plaintiffs for a copycat filing down the road. In fact, to the best of knowledge, all they did was announce that "a class action has been commenced". Which is true. But if you look a bit closer at their release, you'll see that they didn't actually commence one themselves! Only the original one filed by Scott+Scott has actually been filed. Stull, Stull and Brody, however, did seem to try and make it look as if they filed one and have been asking for plaintiffs to contact them instead of Scott+Scott.

A call to Stull, Stull and Brody for comment has not yet been returned. Though we have been contacted, as mentioned in our original report on the Diebold complaint, by other firms who are investigating the possibilities of filing their own complaints against the company.

UPDATE: Please see this new item on the exceptionally good detailed coverage today on all of the above from the Miami Herald. Had I seen their article first, I'd have used it instead of AP's coverage for the above piece.

Ricky - I know you're interested in democracy in Iraq, however, you might get off the Wingnut Dream Machine long enough to realize that without democracy in the good old U.S. of A. you will have nothing. I'm sure you'll pardon me, and other patriots who recognize the importance of putting America first. Even if you don't.

Without honest elections our nation cannot continue to exist. Why can't we have a choice of paper or e voting then a major discrepancy would be obvious?
I heard that Bush-Cheney won the Iraqi election and weren't even on the touch screen. Imagine that.

Two more cents worth along the preceeding lines. If the election in the good old USofA is so incredibly flawed and manipulated as we all understand it to be.....

Is there any chance that the elections in Iraq are anything other than a sham and a farce of the highest order, with no one around to even remotely dig into the voting machines, intimidation and fraud that is foisted upon those pitiful folks.

No, it's got to be right in the "homeplace for democracy" or allllll the rest of the election scenes on the planet are fools play.. Yep, Bush and Cheney won in Iraq too.
Go get 'em Brad!!
Gh

The 51-49 election results reminds me of the movie The Matrix II. In that one Neo meets with the Architect who invented the matrix (matrices actually). He tells Neo how they created a perfect system, but humans rebelled. They were naturally confused, but then devised a slightly imperfect system and the humans took to it quite well except for one anomaly --- all the Neos, one per cycle. Neo was supposed to be the 6th or 7th (no punning here).

Well, in US elections they told us for a long time the country was evenly divided and then had an election (in 2000) where the Supreme Court decided it. Then they told us the nation was divided and we saw a whole lotta 'battleground states' shift from election night (2004) exit polling advantages for Kerry to a slight advantage for Bush in the final numbers.

Will Americans be satisfied with a matrix-like slight imperfection or will they actually care enough to perfect the system a bit by getting rid of DieBoldly and all the other electronic 'voting' systems?

I guess it all depends upon whether they're comfortable with all the Agent Smiths running their lives. Didya ever notice there's no littering or graffiti in the Matrix? Except for the buxom blonde in red it's like the black & white Pleasantville.

Words of intrigue in the article from the Miami Herald article attributed to Sanchez as follows:

"Diebold isn't the only one to blame for hacker-prone equipment. The Florida secretary of state's office should have caught these problems early on, he said, and the Legislature should scrap a law severely restricting recounts on touch-screen machines and equip them with the means of producing a paper trail."

Does Florida already have the other democracy-destroying laws already, that Ohio is passing this week? And, does anyone know if there are other states which already have enacted these laws?

"Needs to discuss them with Diebold", what the hell is that?, now I may be a little bit cynical, but to me , that should send off alarm bells all over our government, of course, unless they already know about the problem, ( which I think they already do)

As far as purple fingers go, thats a sham too

Beautiful job, Brad
(clerical errors aside, as a brought up inner city kid, your writing looks great to me)

When I read all of this my mind goes to the doco I saw of rove on election night of '04. When watching the results with bushco and things weren't going well he immediately ran to a room set up in the WH full of commuters and began to work furiously. What was he doing. Making sure georgie got his votes one way or nuther? M4

I see the Iraqi's were voting with paper ballots. We could learn a few things. So it takes a few weeks. Better an undisputed few weeks that a quick result that is questionable. If it can't be recounted independently and since machines can be easily programed to flip votes. DUMP THEM especially they ones run by a company with secret code that was dedicated per their owner to deliver results for Bush.

For some excellent reading on the subject, check out Steal This Vote by Andrew Gumbel. A good history of voter fraud in the US from pre-Civil War to 2004 elections. I'm just up to the chapter about Ohio's role in the last presidential elections, now. m

The way class action suits work is one firm files it, then a pack of jackals lawyers from other class action firms jump in and announce they're seeking plaintiffs. Soon you have a dozen or more firms beating the bushes for plaintiffs.

Then they meet and the firms that have gathered the most plaintiffs (or sometimes the most dollar volume in plaintiffs) get lead position in a combined suit. Sometimes a very experienced firm located in a state with particularly advantageous laws is given the lead position.

The plaintiffs rarely make much money, but class action law firms make a ton of money.

If the original firm filing the suit handles it well, manages the negotiations skillfully when the cases are combined, this could actually take Diebold down altogether.

I think that is unlikely, however. They'll make some moves to distance themselves from their elections division --- not necessarily sell it, since it might be difficult to put on the market, but there are other ways to handle semi-divestiture of a rogue company, bringing it back into the fold after a third party has cleaned it up.

No matter. If this thing goes into discovery all hell will break loose.

For Big Dan: Right you are. Front-page headlines in today's New York Times about a "historic" moment for Iraq...they're supposedly voting on issues pertaining to their own self-determination, but the process is controlled by the United States. Chew on that for a while.

The same New York Times gave us banner headlines for two days about election fraud in the Ukraine. But it won't even mention election fraud here, so afraid to touch the subject that it avoids coverage of a class-action suit against a Fortune 500 company, Diebold, and the simultaneous resignation of its C.E.O.

There's one thing to hope for. If Iraq reaches full critical mass of freedom, maybe they'll be so enamored of democracy that they'll send election monitors to cover our pwn 2006 and 2008 elections.

You are in error about Leon County, Fl scrambling
to get rid of punch card machines. I am from Leon
County and we have used optitical scan voting
machines for the past 10 to 12 years. In fact our
machines were the error free during the 2000
robbery by Bush and his henchmen.

Jim - Apologies if I was in error there. I will try to look into it. An article I read re: the settlement that Leon County made with the NAACP in 2002 concerning disenfranchisement issues in 2000 referred to punch cards in the county. So I need to look deeper to find out if *all* precincts used punch cards, some or none (as you suggest) in Leon Cty in '00

Thanks for the feedback and my apologies if I was in error there...I'll try to find out for sure.

#2 Stop deluding yourself> they are voting so that Bushco will end his occupation. They actually believe Bushco will leave permanently if they vote ! (Yeah right, I guess Iraquis never saw the PNAC website > most Americans haven't either!)

Brad, you're wrong about Leon county, it isn't one of those problem counties. It has never had punch-card or touch-screen voting machines.

In the early 1990s Leon switched from lever voting machines (which were not manufactured since the 1940s, and getting worn out) to Diebold optical-scan machines (which are easy to tamper with, but you can detect and correct the tampering by manually auditing the paper ballots).

Leon county's Diebold machines have not been tampered with in an actual election, because Sancho is one of the very few county election officials who always do a manual audit of paper ballots immediately after every election.

In 2005 Diebold tried to force Leon county to buy unauditable touch-screen voting machines. Sancho didn't trust Diebold so he brought in a hacker who tested a Diebold optical-scan machine. The hacker proved that Diebold was lying about security, so Sancho dumped Diebold completely.

Ironically Leon county's 2006 election will be less secure than past elections, even though it will be conducted with better equipment. This is because the Jeb Bush administration has passed a law which makes it illegal to conduct the kind of manual audits which have protected Leon county's voters in the past.

Jesus Christ is a false god.
At best all Christians can hope for is partial credit.

Program on the emergence of civilization.

"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent. "
Favor.
And disfavor.

They point out Africansí failed attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.

The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.

AIDS in Africa.

Organizational Heirarchy/Levels of positioning.
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans - The seamless transition between Cleopatra and Julius Ceasar may be a clue alluding to a partnership.
6. Mafia - the real-world 20th century interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.

Our society gives clues to the system in place. We all have heard the saying "He has more money than god." There is also an episode of the Simpsons where god meets Homer and says "I'm too old and rich for this."

I don't want to suggest the upper eschelons are evil and good is the fringe. But these individuals become wealthy exploiting those they hurt.

They have made it abundantly clear that doing business with evil (disfavored) won't help people. They say only good (favored) would have the ear, since evil is struggling for survival, and therefore only the favored could help.

The clues are there which companies are favored and which are disfavored, but they conceal it very hard because it is so crucial.

I offer an example of historical proportions:::

People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union".
Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority.
Unions serve to empower.
Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an environment where there are fewer hurdles.

Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the indistry dominated by the middle and lower classes.
Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins. They all do it. Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise. So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.

The middle class is being deceived. They are being misled into the disfavored, and subsequently will have no assistance from their purchases with corporate america.

The coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to just this::Sam Walton's WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.

They desire a system based on duality:::good and evil. They seek to set up a system of two participants, assign them polar opposites, and give people clues alluding to their affiliation:::
Coke and Pepsi
BestBuy and CircutCity
Energizer and Duracell
Republican and Democrat
The list goes on and on:::
AMD and Intel
Apple and Microsoft (?)
Lowes and HomeDepot
Sam'sClub and Costco
WellsFargo and BofA. For the longest time in CA these two banks reigned supreme.
Pier1 and CostPlus
Borders and Barnes&Noble
PetCo and PetSmart

The truth is decisions are made on each individual based on family history and individual charecter and they either push them with AI or, in this age, tell them to buy from good or evil corporations, depending on the decison, then use that business relationship as positioning to justiy their decision.

Amercia is a country of castoffs, rejects. Italy sent its criminals, malcontents.
Between the thrones, the klans and kindred, they decided who they didn't want and acted, creating discontent and/or starvation.
The u.s. is full of disfavored rejects. It is the reason for the myriad of problems not found in European countries. As far as the Rockafellers and other industrialists of the 19th century go, I suspect these aren't their real names. I suspect they were chosen to go and head this new empire.

Royalty is the correct way to organize a society. Dictatorships and monarchies are a reflection of the antient's hierarchical organization.
Positions go to those who have favor with the rulers, as opposed to being elected.
Elections bring a false sense of how the world is. Democracy misleads people. This is why the disfavored rejects were sent to the shores of America::To keep them on the wrong path. And it's why the US earns its way out of disfavor by inflicting democracy upon the disfavored::Iraq and Vietnam.

Jesus Christ is a false god. All Christians can recieve is partial credit, at best.
The Catholic Church in the tretcherous 20th century teaches of a begnign, forgiving god when quite the opposite is true.
And now they do it to disfavored people of color, Latinos and Asians, after centuries of preying upon them.
The seperatist churches formed because many conciencious thrones wanted their people to earn more than the paltry credit offered via worship through the Catholic Church. But because they were white the throne required worship to stay within Christianity.

Simpson's foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. "It's always the one you least suspect."
"You'll see lots of nuns where you're going:::hell." St. Wigham, Helloween VI:::missionary work, destroying cultures.
Over and over, the Simpsons was a source of education and enlightenment, a target of ridicule by the system which wishes to conceal its secrets.

The advent of the modern Christmas was a brilliant move. It created a vested interest among those who would prefer the Church be destroyed::::
As goes the Catholic Church so goes the majority of annual retail sales.
The similarity between the names "Santa" and "Satan" is no coincidence.

Jews maim the body formed in the image of "god", and inflicted circumcision upon all other white people.
I think about how Jews were used to create homosexuality among Slavics, supposedly retribution for the Holocaust.
Then I think of the Catholic Church and its troubles.
What connection is here between Jews and the Catholic church???
If it is their sinister motives thatís behind the evil that is Jesus Christ are they being used at all?
Perhaps it is them who are pulling strings.
Their centuries of slavery in Egypt proves their disfavor.
For their suffering the Jew leaders were granted the right to prey on the up-and-coming Europeans to try to fix their problems with the ruling elite by imposing a false god upon white people, a recurring aspect of the elite's methodology.
Jews were ostracised for a reason.

There are consequences for the peasant's resistance:::
1. Labor unrest caused the world at war.
2. Black militancy ignited the crack epidemic and gang-related deaths.
3. Women's rights/sexual freedom produced Roe v Wade and women's exclusion from contention for Planet Immortality. But on the bright side peasants don't go. Money is one way of indicating favor, and if you're not wealthy you don't have favor, so don't sweat it::you weren't going anyways. They're leading a lot of people on.

Retribution for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, the Korean War got the disfavored United States into this socially depraved environment in the latter 20th century because the disfavored attacked an antient, revered peoples. Our continued presence keeps us in trouble.
When the disfavored americans attack the wrong people again, as they suggested they will, in Korea or elsewhere, they will pay dearly.

All peoples are ranked in terms of favor and disfavor. And when the disfavored abuse those with favor there is hell to pay.
All the groups mentioned throughout are necessary to justify the will of the managing species. They conceive a strategy, devise a plan yet need a way to implement it, and without these groups the managing species would be exposed in the course of execution. So, based upon their rank they are assigned goals to accomplish and are rewarded with favors.

I question if we would even experience global warming if they didn't terraform in an attempt to destroy disfavored human life on planet earth::::they terraform the weather as they did in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina (and lots of other examples) and justify it with behavior like instructing their petroleum friends to repress alternative technologies.
This is all happening shortly after the Exodus of 2000 (clues::Hong Kong, Panama Canal) for a reason::: they are INFLICTING it upon us, they are hastening closure. Everybody they care about has come up, replaced by clones.
Just as favored European peoples got out before the ugliness of WWII, the semi-favored within the US got out before 9/11.
Armeggedon isnít about the end of the world. Armeggedon is about the death of the disfavored left behind. And they werenít lying::this time it is going to happen with fire.